If potholes are a metaphor for our nation’s infrastructure— even if you strictly define it the old-fashioned way— we’ve got a whole lot of potholes and not enough tar. It dates back to decades of disregard because as a political rallying cry, infrastructure isn’t spellbinding. It isn’t soulful. It’s not sexy.
The only thing it is is essential.
And yet today, in most every segment of our infrastructure, the potholes slow us down. They make it harder to get what we need and harder to get where we’re going.
That’s what’s behind President Biden’s invitation to Senate Republicans to come this week to the White House to negotiate on a remedy for infrastructure. It is an essential negotiation. Our highways need help, our trains need help, our ports, our airports, our bridges, our water systems, our public transit, our broadband access, and a whole lot more. Some are inadequate, some are obsolescent, some are crumbling. None is sufficient for moving us forward and competing on a global scale in the 21st Century.
If you need a contrast, you ought to see the highways in Croatia.
And the trains in China. You ought to see the port in Rotterdam. And the airport in Dubai. They are manifestations of 21st Century technology. They are reflections of 21st Century need.
We have little like them in the U.S. In most cases, nothing even close.
There are explanations for the primacy of infrastructure elsewhere. Croatia’s highways are the silver lining after a half-decade of war, when its infrastructure was shattered and had to be rebuilt. China’s trains are a byproduct of an economy that was like a tiger cooped up in a cage, which suddenly burst from the bars and ran wild. Rotterdam’s port, like tulips and tourism, is a mainstay of Holland’s economy. And Dubai’s airport? It has turned the emirate into a headquarters hub for international corporations from around the world.
In The Bulwark, writer Ric Patterson last month summarized the scope of our infrastructure’s frailties when he encapsulated the latest report from The American Society of Civil Engineers: “46,000 of our nation’s bridges, carrying 178 million trips every day, are structurally deficient. As our water-supply system ages, a water main breaks, on average, every two minutes. More than 2,000 of the nation’s wastewater treatment plants have reached or exceeded their design capacities, and aging systems increase the risk of sewage overflows that threaten public health and safety. Our congested highways cost us $166 billion annually. U.S. airports lack the terminals necessary to handle rising numbers of passengers, contributing to millions of passenger-hours wasted by delays each year. Overall, the World Economic Forum ranks the United States thirteenth in global infrastructure.”
Thirteenth. Most of industrialized Europe is ahead of us. So are nations on the Pacific Rim. The longer we wait to fix our infrastructure, the farther we are from catching up. That’s why a big-ticket investment is imperative. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was right when he said yesterday on CNN, America “will be living with the consequences if we fail to invest.” But invest how much? That’s what the negotiations are about.
The president is right to add some 21st Century necessities to the 20th Century definition of infrastructure: renewable energy, the internet, safe drinking water, safely treated wastewater, public transit, the grid. They are as essential these days to keep things humming as anything else. But if the president wants to get something done, maybe he shouldn’t press for the whole panoply of his preliminary proposal. Like provisions for child care. Elder care. Assisting disabled citizens. Combating climate change. We critically need remedies in those areas too. But integrating them with infrastructure? It could end up as overreach. As Biden himself might say, “Come on, man.”
Why? Because the Republicans almost universally already have said no (and a few Democrats feel the same). They’ve come up with their own “Republican Roadmap” on infrastructure, and although there are nods to modern needs, it is pretty much back to the basics.
To quote GOP Senator John Cornyn of Texas, “There is a core infrastructure bill that we could pass… roads and bridges and even reaching out to broadband. So let’s do it and leave the rest for another day and another fight.” That’s another way of saying, tie too much to infrastructure, expand the definition too broadly, and the whole plan can go down to defeat.
I’m all in favor of Joe Biden’s expansive bent to “go big.” But in this case I would heed Cornyn’s warning to “leave the rest for another day,” because in the pragmatic world of politics, half a loaf is better than none. And maybe the administration agrees. Buttigieg said that in the negotiations, “We’ll see where there might be support for something that’s bipartisan.”
What it comes down to now is not so much what we might want as what we might win.
Especially since even if there is a bearable compromise on what to fix in one bill and what to defer to another, there’s another battle on the horizon: how to pay for whatever it is, large or small.
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For almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks, a political columnist for The Denver Post, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies at home and international crises around the globe. He won three Emmys, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Some of his essays also are published— with images— on a website he co-founded, BoomerCafe.com.
Amen, Greg
Sadly, many Americans know little about the world outside their town, and likely care even less. Worse, many Americans insist that America is the greatest country in the world, so why change anything? And to learn something from another country? That would be unpatriotic. And might lead to (shudder) socialism. Can’t go down that slippery slope.